Stardust
by broken halleluiah
Summary: One-shot. Bert's fingers are cold.


**I wrote this after seeing the musical for the first time. It was incredible! **

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><p>Night was falling, the sun was melting through the icy horizon, and Bert had lost his gloves. The wind sliced through his threadbare old golfing coat and seeped in the scuffed toes of his boots, but only his nose and his sooty fingers were exposed, and it hardly mattered because his nose was long past numb now.<p>

"What is ashes, anyhow?" Bert philosophized aloud to the open rooftop, to distract from the ache in his knuckles as he grasped the broom. "Dust of the gods, luck of the chimney sweep. You remain an insolvable mystery."

She appeared out of nowhere as per the usual, stepped out from the shadow of the chimney or condensed from the smoke itself, possibly. Though she'd been up in the crystal cold stratosphere her cheeks were barely pink from the chill, and the wind that was making his eyes water hardly dared to pull a hair of hers out of place. She folded her umbrella and tapped it against her boot.

"What is ash comprised of? Is that the question? Goodness, you're wearing enough of it that you ought to know by now." Mary reached to dust off the patch on his shoulder, and when he caught her hand in his to kiss it, her eyes immediately widened.

"Why, Bert, your fingers are icicles! What on earth have you done with your gloves?" she scolded.

He smiled sheepishly. "I'm afraid I've lost them, miss."

"Lost them!" Mary huffed, hands on her hips. "I declare, you are worse than _any_ child about losing your gloves. Do you think that I can keep magically producing them out of my bag for you?"

Bert tipped his cap mischievously. "Apologies, miss. I've appreciated every last pair, and I'll never ask for any more."

She sniffed. "That's good, because I don't have any."

Mary had floated above the city at twilight and seen the gnarled old fingers of the beggar man who had found this latest pair of gloves that Bert had lost. She had seen him try to walk past them all in the streets, _really_ try, but it was too cold for someone not have a fire to go home to. Sweeping kept his blood flowing, so he was warm enough, he said.

Bert kicked at a pile of ash, wrapping his coat tighter around himself and bracing for another breath of wind across the rooftop. "I've got me a theory, Miss Mary. There's too much ashes here to just come from our fireplaces. Some of this ashes is the stuff that crumbles offa the stars when they burn up. It's bona fide stardust, it is, all scattered in the street. Used to be something magical."

"Fallen stardust, you say?" she asked, eyebrows arching, glancing at the first pinpricks of light in the night sky overhead.

"Poetical, innit?" he said with a grin. "All burnt to dust."

"That's downright morose, Bert."

"All the good poets was." He cupped his hands and breathed into them, stomping his feet.

"But you make a terrible assumption, my friend, to say that something dirty and scattered on the ground has lost its magic."

She scooped up a handful of ash off the rooftop and cupped it up to her lips, blowing gently. A bit billowed out into the air, but the rest began to glow on her palms, a quiet, muted orange. She nodded to Bert, and he knitted his bare chapped fingers through her dainty gloved ones, trusting that the little embers wouldn't burn him. Instantly warmth spread through his hands like he was clasping a mug of hot coffee. He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly as the pain seeped out of his fingers.

"You're a right miracle, you are," he breathed.

A few pieces of ash spilled from their intertwined fingers and drifted by on the breeze like fireflies, illuminating the wide smile that had replaced her playful smirk. Bert raised Mary's warm sooty hands to his cheek and smeared some of the glowing dust across his numb face.

"You look absolutely ridiculous," Mary teased again. "You've missed a spot." And with one finger she deposited more ash on the tip of his nose. "You'd better take some of this home with you."

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><p>Long after dark, in the biting wind, Bert tap danced down the cobblestone with glowing ash stuffed in the toes of his boots. He clicked his heels, hands jammed unassumingly in his patched-up pockets full of stardust.<p>

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><p><strong>This officially proves there is no rhyme or reason to my tastes and inspiration. Seriously, I've now published for Supernatural, Futurama, and Mary Poppins and I don't think those works could be any less similar. XD<strong>


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